Impacts of noise pollution from high-speed rail and road on bird diversity: a case study in a protected area of Italy.

The disturbance of infrastructures may affect biological communities that are exposed to them. This study assesses the impact of high-speed (highway and railway) infrastructures in a protected study site, the Natural Reserve Fontanili di Corte Valle Re (Emilia-Romagna, Italy). We compared bird diversity with sound intensity and frequency in three sampling areas, increasingly distant from the infrastructures at the border with the reserve, during the last 4 years (2019-2022), monitoring sedentary, nesting, and migratory bird species.